One thing is that we agree with some statements from the anti-Islamic leader of Platform for Catalonia, Josep Anglada, and quite another that we have to swallow the rest of his anti-libertarian message. In case anyone does not know what the fuss is about, here I copy a few excerpts from PXC's political program, which is available on its website:
"The market's despotism consists in the exploitation of everything without limits and in considering the meaning of life the accumulaton by consumers of goods of all kinds. It is also clear that this project is doomed due to its materialistm because the planet's resources are limited and life as we know it will have to change, whether we like it or not.
Traditional politicians, bound hand and foot to the economic powers, can not stop this train of consumption that advances unstoppingly towards nothingness. The ecological problem demonstrates the radical difference between consumerism and the welfare state. Or we stop uncontrolled consumption or we end up welfare, which is a complex concept that also encompasses the spiritual life of man as inseparable from nature.
The liberal rule of the labor market, with unstable and precarious contracts, prevents the access to housing for many young people who aspire only to raise a family and educate their children. (...)
Therefore, it is the economic liberalism which promotes the inability of founding families and the consequent decrease in the birth rate, which is then offset by importing immigrants. "
This is obviously a Falangist ie fascist (the organic ingredient is very characteristic) speech, which shows that, in fact, Anglada has not budged from when he was the man of Blas Pinar (a Franco staunch supporter) in Catalonia.
And incidentally, it also shows that, definitely, Enrique de Diego has lost its way, to join him.
Let us leave aside for now the treatment of the news that lends El Mundo, always wanting to be more politically correct than El País. The truth is that, for once, the prevailing political correctness is right when he branded as Josep Anglada of far-right extremer, but as usual, they do so strictly for wrong reasons. The pseudoprogresism rejects what it calls Islamophobia, which is precisely the only part of speech PXC space, with relevant qualifications. But is unable to recognize the anti-libertarian core of its ideology, because the right-wing socialism is a mirror too uncomfortable for left-wing socialism, whether or not it is implicit.
Geert Wilders, which condemns the expansion of Islam in the Netherlands since the beginning clearly from a libertarian perspective, is the very opposite, to our knowledge, of Josep Anglada, who denounces immigration from the most shameless populism, resorting to the fallacy that foreigners steal jobs to the locals, but incidentally he also spell out some truths. When from certain discourses (both left and right collectivist) people put them in the same bag, they make the same gross pseudoprogresism maneuver, which ranks within the extreme right people like Esperanza Aguirre (President of Autonomous Community of Madrid) and José María Aznar. And this confusion only benefits, as always, the illibertarian of all parties.Source.
These guys are basically Franco supporters who have found a "market segment" in attacking Muslims, more than Islam. This is another difference with Wilders. The latter has been a very hard critic of the Qu'ran and Islam but has always said that he doesn't have anything against Muslims. But PxC leaders are asking for the expulsion of all Muslims in Spain, whether they are actually extremists or not. In fact, De Diego, a journalist with a curious way of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, has actually given a speech (it is now an "only invited" readers' blog) which ends "For a Christian Spain", something which doesn't seem very accurate to me.
Some readers will tell me that I'm naive and that all Muslims are a sort of covered traitors. Well, we have here several extremist imams, who have been investigated by the police for years. They are supporting jihad, punish little girls if they don't get covered, have Islamic police to prevent Muslims from selling alcohol in their shops, hate non-Muslims, etc. It would be actually very accurate to ask for the immediate expulsion of these guys and supporters, who are most of them "Maghrebies" (Moroccan or Algerian) and some of them had gone to Saudi Arabia to "study".
But there are Spanish "original" people who have converted to Islam. They can't be expelled even in the case that they are actually preaching all those things (they are none of the main Islamist imams who are doing this to my knowledge). And the same that in other famous cases (Abu Hamza, to name one), there are others who are living under threat from those "imams" because they dared to tell the police what was going on in their mosques.
The problem, from my point of view (and I can be wrong, of course), is that Western countries should be very firm in applying the law, but can't leave the laws aside. Stopping Muslim immigration could be a solution but actually the only solution is to show extremists (whatever their number or their basis), that the law is going to be applied fully and without hesitation, something that now is not done (i.e.: polygamy, for example, had been accepted by Govts despite it is a crime in European legislations).
Background:
Far-right Platform per Catalonia announces they will take part in local elections in Catalonia.
(Far-right, ultranationalist) Platform for Catalonia presents its candidacy for Catalan Government.
